Age

If you are aged 18 or over, you can volunteer in any role within the Ministry. We have no upper age limit for volunteers.

Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check

If you would like to become a writing mentor or Illustrator you will need to complete a DBS check (formerly known as CRB). We will accept certificates for other organisations if you have registered online with the DBS online update service.

If you have a criminal conviction and you’re not sure if it will affect your eligibility to volunteer, talk to us in confidence using the contact details above.

References

We ask all volunteers for two references before starting in a role. These should be:

One personal reference from a friend who has known you five years or more.

One professional reference from a past or current employer or academic referee who has known you for twelve months or more.

References help us check you are right for the role and are part of our safeguarding policy.

Prove right to work or study in the UK (Non-EU citizen)

Minimum Commitment

We know everyone’s time is precious and we want all our volunteers to get something back from their time with us. What we ask is for volunteers to sign-up to a minimum commitment of completing six sessions with us in the first six months. How volunteers spread these sessions out is really flexible – you might end up booking regularly onto one session per month, or you might complete all your six sessions in the space of a fortnight. It’s up to you. The point is that we invest considerable resources in running our monthly training induction days and we can only train a limited number of volunteers per year. It’s really important to us, and the children in our clubs and workshops, that new volunteers are proactive about completing the minimum six sessions after joining the Ministry.

Availability

The majority of our volunteer shifts are during the week, in the day-time,with only a few shifts available on Saturdays.

Commitment to safeguarding

All our volunteers are trained on the importance of – and methods for – safeguarding children.

Self-management

We ask all our volunteers to manage their own commitment. This involves logging onto our website calendar and choosing sessions you would like to attend.

Children in charge

Your own interests in creative writing and storytelling are valuable, but our young writers’ needs and enjoyment always come first.